Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode (11 page)

“What’s the visibility outside right now, Captain?”

The CAG looked at one of his aides.

“Sir, we’re at zero-zero sometimes; now and then we get a quarter of a mile. We have no scheduled flight operations for the duration of the storm.”

“So we’d have to hit it within a quarter of a mile or we wouldn’t find it at all,” Murdock said. “You have any pilots that good with a chopper that they can hit the eye of a needle?”

“I hope so, but I’m not sure I’d let anyone try it.”

Murdock scowled and stared at the bulkhead. “Does your latest weather map show any clear spaces between the squalls? Like valleys between the peaks?”

The CAG looked at another officer at the table.

“Yes, sir. The squalls are about twenty miles wide, and moving to the east at about fifteen knots. About every hour and a quarter we should have a fairly clear space. There will still be some high clouds and remnants of the preceding storm, but visibility should be ten to fifteen miles.

“Good,” Murdock said. “Now, how big is this window? How wide is that clear valley?”

The same officer spoke. “We never know for sure. Depends how fast the weather cell immediately behind is traveling. If it’s moving at, say, twenty knots, it’s overtaking the first one and cuts down on the length of time for the clear spell. If it’s moving at half the speed of the one ahead of it, the window is open longer.”

“That would be my suggestion, gentlemen: that we find that window, move in with two Sixties loaded with our sixteen SEALs, with firm radio communications, and that we drop in on that atoll. We have twelve hours to find a suitable window. In that time the storm may let up, go around us, or die out.”

“At ten thousand feet the Seahawk can do about two hundred miles per hour. Say we’re a hundred and fifty miles from the atoll by then, take you less than an hour to get there. Would the bird stay on the ground with you?”

“Preferably. We’ve been stranded in some strange spots without any transport.”

“Depending on your mission on the atoll, we could bring you back in the next window or wait,” the CAG said.

“If we get there early, there will be a wait. What time is it?”

“Almost sixteen hundred, sir,” one of the officers at the table said.

The CAG shook his head. “I can’t send you out in the dark, even in a good open window. The weather is too unpredictable. It could close in suddenly and you’d be in danger of not being able to find the atoll or get back to the ship. It’ll have to be within an hour, or in the morning first light.”

“Agreed,” Murdock said. “How does the weather look in the next hour?”

The weather officer frowned. “We’re about in the middle of a big cell that won’t be pushed past us for another two hours.”

“Then it’s daylight and we hope for better weather or
we find a valley we can wade over there in. How fast are we going now?”

The captain looked at another officer. “Sir, last reading was thirteen knots. The seas are getting large out there.”

“So, by dawn we should be nearly on top of the atoll,” Murdock said. “That might change our plans. Be damn nice to know if the freighter had stopped there and then moved on. It should come to the atoll two or three hours before we get there. A furious lot can happen in three hours with these hijackers.”

On board the
Willowwind

Keanae knew too late that he should have done it right then. Jomo Shigahara himself had come down to the galley to bitch about the quality of the food. He was less than fifteen feet from where Keanae hid behind the cornflakes and cases of canned goods in the storage locker. The door was open. It would have been simple to nail the bastard with two shots from his .45. Now it would be harder.

Since that time the heavy weather had hit and the freighter was struggling to make ten knots. The chief mate had been let out of his cabin arrest and willingly complied with Shigahara’s orders to keep the ship from going down, and to get it back on the course that had been set. Chief Mate Barry Stillman had told Wally the second cook that the ship was heading for Bikar Atoll.

“Nice little spot. Has water and lots of trees. Small community there, with lots of fishermen. They even have a clinic and a real doctor. That’s where you should jump ship. How are you at swimming?”

Keanae grinned. “Not too fucking good with this shot-up shoulder, but I could make it a half mile or so.”

“If we stop there, and I bet you a thousand we will, we’ll anchor on the lee of the atoll and go in by that whale boat on the aft deck. Motor and everything. We won’t be more than two hundred yards offshore.”

“Maybe it’ll all be over before then,” Keanae said. “Where does the captain take his dinner?”

“In his cabin …” Wally stopped. “You thinking of doing something drastic?”

“Yep, should have done it before. Without the head of this snake, the whole damn thing dies.”

“He always carries that little automatic. A thirty-eight I think it is, or a nine-millimeter. Say he has seventeen rounds. Your forty-five only has eight, right?”

“Seven in the magazine and one in the chamber. I won’t need that many. Who takes the man’s food up to him?”

Wally laughed. “Hell, I think that you’re going to do it.”

“Wally, tell me exactly how the food gets there. Do you knock and say dinner? Or just knock and wait for him to open the hatch? Is there any set procedure he’ll be looking for? I’ll have a cap on and pulled down when the hatch opens.”

“Nothing special. I’ve taken it up a half dozen times. Just knock on the hatch and when he yells, you yell, ‘Dinner, Captain,’ and he should open up.”

“How long?”

“His tray will be ready in about twenty minutes. He likes to eat promptly at eighteen hundred.”

“You say eighteen hundred? You were Navy?”

“Twenty-one years and accepting my retirement checks.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Keanae went behind the stores and put on different clothes. He wore khaki shorts, as most of the men did, and a blue shirt with the tails out. On his head he had bill cap touting the New York Yankees. He pulled it down and put on a pair of light-colored sunglasses. Then he figured that was too much and left the sunglasses with his other gear behind a case of pickles.

He felt dizzy for just a moment as he picked up the tray. That damn lead slug in his shoulder was starting to affect him. The tray was heavier than he’d imagined. Wally said there were always three entrees on the tray. He had the .45 stuffed in his belt under the shirt, which was just long enough to cover it. He wasn’t sure how he
would do it, but it would get done. He’d have to play it as it fell. Keanae walked the familiar corridors and up the ladders to Officer Country and knocked on the captain’s hatch.

“Yeah?” A voice barely came through the heavy steel.

“Captain’s dinner is here,” Keanae bellowed so Shigahara could hear him.

The man inside said something that Keanae couldn’t understand, and then the hatch opened outward a crack. Keanae nudged it toward him with the fingers on his right hand, then pulled it open. He stepped just inside the hatch and held out the tray.

“Put it on the table, idiot,” Shigahara snapped.

Keanae took it a dozen feet to the table bolted to the wall, then turned, the .45 already out. The CIA man was surprised to see that the hijacker had his own weapon out and pointing in Keanae’s general direction. Keanae fired twice as fast as he could. The first round caught Shigahara in the chest and slammed him backward in his chair. The second round was higher from the surge upward of the weapon’s recoil. The second round hit Jomo Shigahara just above his nose, tore off half of his scalp, and pulverized massive amounts of his brain centers.

Keanae hadn’t heard the smaller gun fire, but he felt the round jolt into his right thigh and nearly knock him down. He stayed on his feet and felt the dizziness come back. For a moment he looked at the hijacker where he had flopped backward in the soft chair. The hijacking was over. Now if he could just get up to the bridge.

It took him fifteen minutes moving along the familiar corridors and ladders, until he pushed open the bridge hatch, then yelled at the chief mate and fell forward on his face.

When Keanae came back to consciousness five minutes later he still held the .45 clamped in his hand, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger. They had lifted him into a chair and somebody had bound up his leg wound. Chief Mate Stillman hovered over him.

“About time you came back to see us. I had a man
check the captain’s cabin. Nice shooting. Now what the hell are we supposed to do?”

Keanae shook his head to try to clear it. He was on the bridge. Yes, and with Chief Mate Stillman. Slowly his eyes focused and he took a deep breath. His leg hurt and his shoulder seemed to be on fire.

“What should we do now?”

“Storm still on?”

“Right, looks like a big one. We’ll make Bikar atoll before morning.”

“Radio the Navy. Tell them where we are. We’ll wait for them at Bikar to reclaim the U.S. property and get this tub on its way back to San Diego.”

Chief Stillman looked away. He shook his head. “Keanae, I’m sorry to say that we can’t call in the Navy. This afternoon Shigahara went into the communications room and shot holes in every piece of radio equipment down there. We can’t transmit to anyone, nor can we receive. We’re deaf right now to the outside world.”

It took Keanae a while to absorb what the chief mate had told him. He blinked, then tried to sit up straighter, but when he put pressure on his left arm, he let out a groan.

“You said we don’t have any radio?”

“None at all. He must have been expecting to change ships or something at Bikar.”

“Okay. When we get to Bikar we can use their radio. The Navy can’t be far behind us.” He pushed up with his right hand. Yes, He felt better now. Shigahara was dead. Now for the other four. “Round up the other hijackers. Tell them Shig wants to see them right away on the bridge. We’ll take them down and then be ready for the Navy with no shots fired.”

Ten minutes later two of the hijackers had reported to the bridge and were promptly disarmed, tied hand and foot, and pushed into a corner. The third one tried to get his gun out, but the chief mate slugged him with a right-hand fist that jolted him to the deck. The last hijacker was not to be found.

Keanae felt better. “Watch for that last one. Socha is his name. He’s got a handgun. Now, how much longer until we get to Bikar?”

It was seven hours more before their radar poked a hole in the rain and fog and they had a bearing on the atoll.

“I’ve been here before,” Keanae said. “It’s one of the good-sized atolls, with trees and springs for freshwater, and an actual hill almost a hundred feet high. The volcano was more active here. There’s also an airport. They might have extended the runway since I was here, but not long enough for commercial jets to land. Maybe a thousand people here. One tourist hotel, lots of beaches and the lagoon, and lots of vicious coral heads. I’ve still got scars to prove it.

“Come in on the lee side and we should be able to anchor within a hundred yards of the reef,” Keanae said. They edged up to the speck of coral. The rain slacked off for a moment, and the small atoll came in clearly. Lights showed in buildings. The lagoon looked quiet and serene. Before they crept up to an anchor spot, they heard a series of submachine gunshots from the atoll. Lights flared through the misty rain and a bullhorn blasted over the whining of the wind.

“About time you got here. I’m sending out a boat for the three million, Jomo, and, you little Jap sonofabitch, you better have it intact or your head is on a platter. After I get the cash in my hot little hands, we’ll decide how many of those packages we send out by air while the damn storm is still on. Get some lights over the side so we can see where the fuck we’re driving this little motor boat.”

Bikar Atoll, Marshall Islands

Keanae stood on the rail of the
Willowwind
, stunned by the bullhorn announcement from the atoll. He reacted at once.

“Okay, there are some more hijackers coming out to the ship. We’ve got four pistols and the rifle from the arms locker. We find volunteers and stand them off. They can’t get up the side if we don’t lower a ladder. Chief Mate, you have a pistol. Get two more men. I have a pistol and the rifle, looks like an old deer-hunting rifle.”

“It belonged to the captain,” Stillman said just before he left to talk to the crew, which had been let out of the dayroom the moment they had control of the ship. He came back soon with three men.

“Both ex-military. We each have thirty rounds. What’s our strategy?”

“We don’t say a word. We let them get close to the ship, then each man fires one round at them. We probably won’t hit anybody, but all we need to do is discourage them. As a last choice, we pull up anchor and move out into the ocean. The rain has stopped for a moment. Here they come.”

The powerboat negotiated a narrow channel out from the lagoon in the dark. Only an experienced man on the tiller could make the night passage. Then it sped the one hundred yards toward the freighter.

Keanae had told the men with the guns what to do and to fire only on his command. The motor launch came closer. “When I call fire, we all shoot one round, understood?”
The men said they did. They were spaced five yards apart along the rail amidships. Keanae watched the boat come through the murky darkness. It had running lights. When they were twenty feet from the side of the ship, he called out sharply.

“Fire.”

Five rounds thundered into the chilly night. The man driving the motorboat cut the engine. The same voice blasted on the bullhorn.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Shigahara? You trying to get away with that three million? You know better. Now, cut the shit, and drop a ladder.”

“One more round,” Keanae shouted and the men fired. This time a scream of pain came from someone in the boat. It surged ahead until it scraped against the side of the ship. Now the sailors would have to lean out over the rail to hit the small craft.

“Bastard, Shigahara. You think we didn’t plan for something like this? Hell, we did. We’ve got two big military-type limpet mines attached to your hull a foot underwater. I hit a radio signal and both of them will blast a hole ten feet wide in your hull and you’ll go down in ten minutes. You want that?”